RELEASE: Danielle Gray Joins the Center for American Progress as Senior Fellow

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress announced that Danielle Gray will join the organization as a Senior Fellow. Gray’s work will focus on issues related to democracy, criminal justice, civil rights policy, and the judicial system.

Gray is also a litigation partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP in New York and Washington, D.C., where she is a member of the firm’s financial services group and provides counseling to financial institutions, health care companies, and other companies on complex regulatory problems and litigation. Additionally, she plays an active role in the Firm’s appellate and white collar and corporate investigations practices. Gray is also a member of O’Melveny’s Community Legal Services Committee and is leading an effort to develop additional high-impact pro bono legal service opportunities.

Gray served in the Obama administration for five years in senior legal and policy positions, most recently as assistant to the president and cabinet secretary. In that role, she served as President Barack Obama’s primary liaison to the cabinet departments and agencies, helping to coordinate policy and communications strategy across the administration. Prior to this, she served as deputy director of the National Economic Council and deputy assistant to the president for economic policy, where she focused on labor, education, and training issues.

“Throughout her career, Danielle Gray has committed herself to ensuring that our justice system lives up to its promise of fairness, and she has worked to expand opportunity,” said Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress. “We are thrilled that she is joining CAP and look forward to working to ensure that our courts and our country’s democracy work for everyone. Danielle is a brilliant lawyer and policy expert, and she will greatly contribute to CAP’s work.”

Gray previously served as senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, where she focused on constitutional challenges to federal statutes, policies, and agency actions. She also served as special assistant to the president and associate counsel to the president. In that role, she provided legal advice on domestic and economic policy issues ranging from health care to labor to civil rights. She also worked on judicial nominations, including the nominations and successful confirmations of Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

Before joining the administration, Gray served as deputy national policy director for Obama for America. Earlier in her career, she served as a law clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Merrick Garland on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Gray received her bachelor’s degree in economics and public policy from Duke University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.